Family Circus
by PainapplePrincess
Summary: 'The void of space, the aching cold, the feel of Death wrapping heavy arms around him, finally and much too soon. It will never leave you, he murmurs, corpse-chilled lips pressing softly against Trowa's skin. I will never leave you. Somehow, all Trowa can think is that he's never been especially afraid of Death.' 2x3, 5xCathy


_And I never wanted anything from you_

_Except everything you had and what was left after that too, oh_

_Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back_

_Struck from a great height by someone who should know better than that_

::::::::::

Heero is the first.

He shows up in the middle of the night, stumbling up to the small fire Trowa's been trying to rescue. In fact, he nearly stumbles into it before Trowa notices him and catches hold of his arm. The flesh is icy to the touch, and his entire frame is shaking, but Trowa's certain it's not from the cold.

He's even more certain when, with a sigh that sounds like Heero's soul is escaping, the young man crumples to the ground, forehead coming to rest on Trowa's foot like a strange parody of a dogeza. Moving carefully, so as to not dislodge him, Trowa reaches for the kettle and pours a cup of terrible coffee. They don't move until Catherine finds them, and she doesn't remark on Heero's sudden appearance.

She knows exactly why he's there.

:::

It's no surprise that Catherine takes to Heero like a mama duck to a wayward duckling. She has an affinity for troubled young men, Trowa thinks as he watches her position Heero in front of the target. Like some kind of switch inside her that flips when she senses a troubled psyche in her presence. Vague annoyance wars against long-suffering affection within him as she ruffles Heero's hair.

Heero doesn't respond, but he never does, anyway. Trowa is glad that Heero's at the circus, even though it means he has to share a trailer. It's nice to have someone around with the same hollow eyes, the same tense twitch in his limbs, like a cornered rabbit.

And also, he supposes, it's nice to have someone there to hold him down when he screams himself awake.

:::

Trowa doesn't ask Heero why he ended up curled around his feet, shaking apart at the seams. He doesn't really need to know. He's distracted by Quatre soon enough, anyway.

His old friend shows up, smiling so painfully Trowa thinks his face might tear apart, not long after Heero had. He brings a change of clothes, a mess of emotions that surrounds him like a dense fog, and a message for the former zero-one. He tells Heero that Relena's concerned in a voice that sounds a little too much like his Zero-voice for Trowa's comfort.

Heero doesn't answer, peering down at the pile of potato chunks with a critical eye. He picks out a piece that's slightly longer than it is wide and throws it into the fire. Carefully, he sets down his knife and begins to count out the remaining pieces. Trowa doesn't interrupt him, because Heero hates having to start over, and Quatre must get the message, because he only sighs a little and goes back to tugging at his shirt-cuffs absently.

There are one-hundred and twelve pieces of potato. Heero throws the anomaly into the fire and almost smiles.

:::

Quatre can't sleep in Trowa's trailer.

It's not a matter of space - although two people per trailer is already uncomfortable, Spartan lifestyles or no. Trowa had even insisted on the first night, curling up in a sleeping bag that took up what little floorspace there was. In retrospect, that had been a mistake.

Afterwards, Quatre keeps his distance whenever Trowa's asleep. Neither really had a grasp of the mechanics of empathy, but on that first night they had managed to figure out the dos and don'ts of an empath sharing sleeping space with a man who suffers night terrors the hard way.

It was pretty much entirely 'don't'.

Trowa's policy of not asking seems to have rubbed off on the blond, though, because he doesn't. Nor does he avoid Trowa during waking hours, though the strange emotional feedback effect is only slightly less uncomfortable then. Trowa forebears, as does everyone, because the crushing weight of Quatre's guilt isn't the sort of thing a person wants to experience more than once.

:::

It isn't long before the ringmaster begins to take Quatre aside and ask his opinion on the business side of running a circus. Though Quatre has no experience in show business, his commercial sense is impeccable, and Trowa nearly breathes a sigh of relief. Not in the least because the responsibility gives Quatre something to focus on other than his own failures.

Target practice seems to be Heero's preferred way to spend his time. Trowa understands, because he'd been caught in a collapsing tent more than once because Heero had noticed the stakes weren't all the same length. It's better, he thinks, that Heero be given something he really has no say in.

He's wrong, because one day, Heero shifts to the left just as Catherine releases her knife, and she's so certain it's going to impale him that she screams before it even strikes the target. Trowa arrives in time to hear Heero explain that he'd needed to move, or the distance between that knife and his left eye would have been greater than the distance between its twin and his right eye.

Trowa backs out quickly and wonders if maybe Heero wouldn't be better suited to potatoes, after all.

:::

It's only for the week, Wufei says as he slings his duffel to the ground. His face is paler than normal, expression smooth like marble, and his eyes are as empty as any Greek statue's. Trowa picks up his bag and tosses it to Quatre, because there's space for another pallet in the blond's trailer, and Trowa knows it's not just for the week.

He doesn't know how long it would have taken for a Greek sculptor to paint in the eyes of his creation, but Trowa suspects that it takes longer for living people.

Trowa never asks, not of anyone, but it doesn't take long to figure out why Wufei had sought refuge. Quatre comes to breakfast with a thin red line standing out starkly against his throat, and Wufei refuses to meet anyone's eyes. Heero fetches Wufei's things without a word and takes his own to Quatre's trailer.

While he's gone, Catherine drops a ladle, and Wufei nearly decapitates her. His eyes are far away when Trowa wrestles him to the ground, black as space and gleaming with beam rifle fire. His hands claw at Trowa desperately, but he doesn't make a sound.

Trowa has Heero hide the sword when he comes back, just to be safe.

:::

People treat Wufei carefully. More carefully than they treat the other three former terrorists. But then, none of them had ever broken a man's nose in two places for moving about too quietly.

Wufei finds a safe space in time, though, away from the general havoc of circus life, in wardrobe, of all places. It becomes his trailer more than anyone's, and no one complains. Especially the clowns, because now they have someone to do their makeup for them. It makes them feel like movie stars, Quatre suggests one evening, nearly prompting Heero to smile.

Sometimes, Trowa sees messages in the greasepaint - flag signals as the clowns tumble out into the ring. 'Keep clear', Josie's blue-and-yellow streaks say. Andre's blue-and-white stripes scream, 'I am on fire, likely to explode'. Once, Sven's face is a red-and-white checkerboard of 'you are in danger', and Trowa makes sure to barricade Wufei in wardrobe until he taps out 'all is well' on the door.

He teaches Catherine and the ringmaster the International Code of Signals...just in case.

:::

Duo is...a surprise, at first.

Heero's almost gotten to a point where he can ignore Catherine's irregular knife-throwing pattern when he shows up, grinning broadly and easily avoiding Wufei's reflexive backhand when he appears too suddenly behind the former zero-five. His braid twitches like Leon's tail, and his eyes don't seem dead at first glance.

He shrugs off Quatre's questions and makes himself at home wherever there's space for him to sleep. He hauls equipment, mucks out pens, spends whole afternoons trying to master the art of mending costumes, and never complains. He chatters incessantly about absolutely nothing, and if Trowa hadn't woken up sobbing to the cold eyes of Death Himself one night, he would never guess that anything was out of place.

But something is, and the more he looks, the more he sees. Grins that hang like cobwebs, the cold gravestones behind seemingly-warm eyes, easy reactions that taste stale and well-rehearsed.

It's there, Duo whispers to him another night, peering at him through the gloom, eyes nearly lit with mild curiosity as Trowa tries to calm the keening wail that wants to tear itself from his throat. The feelings are all there, Duo's quite sure, but he can't seem to touch them properly. Like his soul is slightly out of phase with the rest of him.

He laughs like Death, and it's then that Trowa realizes that Duo's not even awake.

:::

The first time Wufei fills in for Josie, it's only as a stand-in during rehearsal. Trowa watches from the stands, Catherine clutching his hand nervously, as though they are watching their child take the stage for his first piano recital.

Wufei takes to it, as though acting the clown is as easy as breathing for him. Trowa isn't sure what to think about it, except that even when Sven pretends to punch him in the nose, Wufei stays in the present. It must be good, Trowa thinks, a strange feeling needling at his heart. It must be progress.

Later, he feels a sort of echo of warmth from Quatre when the ringmaster approves the new budget, and he realizes that the strange little feeling is hope.

He's not sure he likes it.

:::

Duo can fly.

Trowa watches as his friend soars through a somersault, hands grasping the trapeze with a crow of delight.

He still doesn't like this idea of Duo's - doesn't like teaching him to fling himself from high places, net or no net - but he can't very well refuse him now. Not now, when it's clear how much Duo misses the freedom of flight, how at home he is in the air with nothing to hold him up but a makeshift swing and adrenaline in his veins.

He's a natural, Catherine says as Duo tumbles overhead. It'll be good for him to expend some energy, Quatre offers consolingly. Maybe, Wufei grumbles as he tosses away an old makeup sponge, he'll stay put for the night this time.

Maybe Duo does stay put. Death doesn't, though. He doesn't laugh, either. Instead, when Trowa bolts upright, Death sighs and takes his hand. His grip is cold like grave dirt, but it's firm, and it anchors Trowa well enough that, for the first time in a long time, it doesn't take him hours to fall back asleep.

:::

It's Heero who notices first, which is poetic, Trowa supposes. He'd expected it to be Quatre, really, but the blond has so much trouble differentiating between his own guilt and that of others that it must keep slipping right by him. Heero knows Trowa best, though, better even than Quatre ever had. And he is, if nothing else, frighteningly observant.

Duo dislocates his shoulder during a practice run, and Trowa knows it's not his fault. He does, really. But it's Trowa's routine, it's Trowa who's meant to be in charge, and it had been Trowa who had agreed to teach him the ins and outs of acrobatics in the first place. Duo is Trowa's partner in the new routine, and that makes him Trowa's responsibility.

Heero watches with a frown that night as Trowa pushes his dinner around on his plate. He knows what Heero's thinking - a person who has grown up with nothing doesn't waste food. But Trowa ignores him, expertly arranging his uneaten meal so that it doesn't appear to be uneaten. He gives the mess to Dahlia, the bareback rider, because she doesn't mind eating scraps, and goes to bed.

He's only a little surprised when he wakes up to a bowl of fruit and a glower the likes of which he hasn't seen since their war days. You never know when you'll need to be at full strength, Heero reminds him with a hint of reproach. Trowa finishes every morsel under Heero's watchful eye, but try as he might, he can't keep it down.

Heero doesn't reprimand him this time, but the disappointment in his friend's eyes nearly outweighs his guilt.

:::

Trowa catches Wufei painting a butterfly on Catherine's cheek one afternoon.

They're between venues that day, listless and lazy in the heat of Earth-summer. Some of the performers have set up a game of water-tag with the local laborers, and the strongman's son is chasing dandelion puffs and laughing. It feels a little like normal, actually, which disturbs Trowa more than it probably should.

The pair are sitting on the steps of the wardrobe trailer when Trowa rounds the corner, and for a moment, all he can see is the strange, soft smile on his sister's face. It's not her usual smile, the one she's taken to showing all the former Gundam pilots. The difference chafes, and reality grays a little at the edges.

Wufei says something in a quiet sort of tone, and Catherine repeats it. He's teaching her Mandarin as his brush traces over the soft curve of her cheekbone, his voice curling around the strange syllables as easily as the fingers of his free hand curl under her chin.

Trowa walks away, because he's not sure why he feels so frightened, and until he works that out, it's best if he pretends that never happened.

:::

The ringmaster calls Quatre 'son'.

The first time he does it, a frantic burst of panic and grief and that wretched, ever-present guilt nearly knocks the older man off his feet. Trowa himself trembles under the strain, and he's several yards away - well outside the general safe distance where Quatre's empathy is concerned.

Not too long after, Trowa overhears Duo request that the ringmaster not avoid calling Quatre 'son'. He's angry, at first, because who is Duo to actively poke at other people's open wounds? But by the fifteenth time, Quatre no longer reacts except with a tiny frission of pride, and Trowa feels not a little foolish.

He needs that, Death says as he leans his head on his hand, the other idly stroking Trowa's palm as his terror recedes. Needs the connection, needs someone to be proud of him. Needs the opportunity to stitch that gaping wound closed before it becomes even more infected.

Trowa gazes at Death blearily as the braided boy falls back into stage two sleep, kneeling there beside the bed with his head on Trowa's pillow. He wonders about the sudden waver of understanding in Death's voice. And maybe, he thinks as sleep claims his again, he hates Duo, both of him, just a little.

Just a little...tiny...bit.

:::

They're halfway to Sanc when Heero turns away from them, bag slung over one tense shoulder and eyes already looking towards some future battle.

I can't go to Sanc. He tosses the words behind himself carelessly, and they fall like stones between them. Duo laughs, his own laugh, and Wufei calls Heero an idiot. For his part, Trowa feels very lost, but he knows that they're not going anywhere without Heero while he has anything to say about it, so he grabs the strap of his former comrade's bag and yanks him back so hard the other man nearly falls over.

Because Wufei isn't wrong. Heero really is an idiot for thinking he can just drop everything and leave. He has responsibilities, after all - who will cook? who will submit themselves to Catherine's terrifyingly sharp ministrations? who will hold Trowa down when the cold void of space sucks at him in the night while Death sits by and watches? No, Heero isn't allowed to just leave. He's part of the family now, and that's that.

Heero looks up at him while he's explaining this, looking for all the world like a very confused, slightly dangerous puppy. Then he sighs, mutters something undoubtedly unimportant about what Relena would want, and clambers up into the cab of the truck. Trowa tosses his bag in after him with perhaps a bit more force than necessary and slams the door.

It's Heero's turn to drive, anyway.

:::

Relena comes out to the trailers afterwards, smiling her politician's smile, with three men at her back.

An excellent performance, she says. I'm very happy for you, Heero, she says. I was hoping you'd find some sort of peace, she says. Duo laughs, and this time it's definitely Death behind his bared teeth, but Heero goes about cleaning Catherine's knives - one, two, three, four, five even strokes - as though he hadn't heard.

She makes small talk, asks after people none of them have seen in months, years, a lifetime. She talks about Peace, with a capital 'P', without irony, and it sets Trowa's teeth on edge.

The Preventers miss you, she says to Wufei, and for the first time in a long time, the life in his eyes is sucked into the black hole of their shared past. Trowa heaves in a breath to speak, to snap, to scream, but before he can, Catherine has smacked her soundly across the face and informed her in no uncertain terms that if Heero is to have no business with Relena, then Relena ought have no business with them.

Do you know how you could have reacted? that slap says clearly. Are we meant to believe in you, in your Peace, when your most faithful soldiers are left to live the rest of their lives on past battlefields?

Relena looks neither stricken nor surprised, so perhaps these are questions she has already asked herself, Trowa muses. Because Relena's not a fool. She understands very well that there is nothing she can give Heero - that what bound them together in the past cannot remain, for her sake, and the sake of their new Peace.

Reality tastes bitter on their tongues as they pack away their masquerade, but no one corrects Catherine. Deep down, their selfish hearts aren't ready to forgive. And really, are they able, Trowa wonders, when they can't even forgive themselves?

:::

Duo's hand in his, in the light of day and surrounded by family and warmth, feels like the breathless moment when he reaches for the trapeze, just before his fingers grasp it, when he really could just let it slip past and let that exhilarating swoop of gravity in his stomach grip him tight and-

He doesn't know, really, what he wants from Duo. Part of him is content with what they have - jokes for just the two of them, a shoulder to lean on when he gets tired on journeys, eyes that are warm where they were once a glint of moonlight off of gravestones, hands that are warm when they grasp his tightly, keeping him from taking that heart-pounding fall.

Another part of him wants...

He's not even sure what, but he does know that he could never have just Duo.

It won't ever go away, Death says, thin fingers combing through Trowa's sleep-and-nightmare-mussed hair. He laughs, a clatter of loose teeth and flutter of bats' wings, and presses closer to his bedmate.

The void of space, the aching cold, unlike anything he'd ever felt before or has ever felt since, the feel of Death wrapping heavy arms around him, finally and much too soon. It will never leave you, he murmurs, corpse-chilled lips pressing softly against Trowa's skin.

I will never leave you.

Somehow, all Trowa can think is that he's never been especially afraid of Death.

:::

No one is surprised when the ringmaster retires. He's older than he'd ever admit, and tired, and not a little successful.

Similarly, no one is surprised when ownership of the circus is left to Quatre, who has been the ringmaster's faithful shadow for so long now. He's brighter these days, not controlled, but no longer toxic. He shines like he never had so long as Trowa had known him, and it feels good just to watch him live again.

Quatre changes nothing about the circus, because there's nothing to change. Things move on as they had done before, from venue to venue, day to day. It doesn't become familiar, because it had been familiar from the start, but it does become...less. And somehow more.

Heero fries one hundred and twelve pieces of potato, and learns to hammer in stakes without concerning himself with their length. He smiles, and his eyes look into the present, and he can't pretend he isn't clawing his way towards okay. Everyone pitches in to get him a motorbike for his nineteenth birthday, and never once do they think that if they let him drive away, he might not come back.

Duo...

Duo seems to have gathered his soul back into his body - slowly, painstakingly, and not a little agonizingly, Trowa is sure. Sure, because he has been beside Duo the entire time, watching him rebuild. Duo no longer sleepwalks into Trowa's bed, because nowadays he's there to begin with, and if Trowa jerks awake suddenly to meet Death's eyes, his heart races for entirely different reasons.

It's two years - give or take a few months - from the night Heero first fell in on himself at Trowa's feet when Wufei proposes to Catherine, soft and gentle where once he was a thousand broken shards embedded forever on a long-gone battlefield. She accepts with such utter glee that Trowa can't find it in himself to be bewildered and frightened by what lies between them. He doesn't understand it, doesn't even remember it happening, and he isn't sure he's ready for this to happen for Catherine. He congratulates them both with a genuine smile, though, because they look happy.

When Duo passes him a mug full of cheap champagne, he takes the opportunity to press his fingertips to the back of the former pilot's hand with a different sort of smile, and finds he likes the way his partner's ears turn pink. Then the smaller man is off with a flick of his braid and a shy grin.

Happy.

Trowa rolls the emotion on his tongue, bittersweet and tingly like the champagne.

He doesn't hate it.

:::

END...?


End file.
